SAN FRANCISCO, March 7 (Reuters) – General Motors Co
chief executive Dan Akerson said it may be two years
before its European division is back in profit as the continent
sheds over-capacity the same way the U.S. industry had to over
the past half decade.

The world’s largest automaker has lost money in Europe for
the last 12 years.

Feb 29 (Reuters) – Transocean Ltd
may face another $473 million in potential U.S. back taxes,
according to its annual regulatory filing, in which it also said
a judge partly cleared the company in a similar tax dispute
dating back eight years.

The company, owner of the world’s largest offshore oil rig
fleet, said the latest assessment received this month for 2008
and 2009 related to accounting between subsidiaries, for both
engineering services performed between them and transfer pricing
for rig charters.

Feb 28 (Reuters) – An international tribunal has found
that it has jurisdiction to decide if Ecuador violated a treaty
with the United States requiring it to guarantee a fair trial to
Chevron Corp in an environmental lawsuit that ended in
an $18 billion judgment against the oil company.

A Tuesday posting on Chevron’s website that was attributed
to the tribunal read: “The tribunal declares that it has
jurisdiction to proceed to the merits phase of these arbitration
proceedings.”

(Reuters) – Transocean Ltd took a $1 billion charge related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the clearest indication yet that the contract driller is preparing to settle the case.

Shares of Transocean, owner of the world’s largest offshore drilling fleet, rose 5 percent on its solid quarterly results, out on Monday, and the prospect of closing out a liability that has loomed for nearly two years.

Feb 24 (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil Corp, the
world’s largest publicly traded oil company, now expects to
invest $37 billion annually over the next several years, coming
in at the top of a previous range and in line with an industry
trend toward robust spending.

The new guidance in Exxon’s annual report, issued on Friday,
compares with the previous capital expenditure range of $33
billion to $37 billion. Actual capital and exploration
expenditure in 2011 was $36.8 billion.

Feb 23 (Reuters) – Chevron Corp has pushed
back the expansion of a natural gas processing plant in Nigeria,
originally slated for this year, by another three years,
according to the U.S. oil company’s annual report.

Phase 3B of the Escravos Gas Plant, designed to gather 120
million cubic feet of natural gas per day from eight offshore
fields and then compress and transport it to onshore facilities,
had already been delayed by a year.

(Reuters) – An arbitration panel reinforced an order that Ecuador’s government seek to suspend an $18 billion court award against U.S. oil company Chevron Corp over pollution in the South American country’s rainforest.

A year after its original order, the three-person panel, working under The Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration, told the Republic of Ecuador on Thursday to “take all measures necessary” through its judicial, legislative or executive branches to suspend enforcement of the award at home and abroad.

Feb 6 (Reuters) – Anadarko Petroleum Corp
reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit and solid 2011
oil and gas production that it more than replaced through
exploratory drilling, and its shares rose 1.5 percent.

The company also said on Monday it resumed an “active”
deepwater exploration program in the Gulf of Mexico, having
recently made its first discovery in the region since the
moratorium that followed the BP spill.

Feb 2 (Reuters) – Sunoco Inc (SUN.N: Quote, Profile, Research) took another step
in its running effort to turn the business around by replacing
the chief executive who oversaw a dramatic shake-up of what was
once the major independent refiner in the Northeastern United
States.

The Philadelphia-based retail and logistics company also
increased its dividend and announced a share buyback as part of
a new strategic effort to restore its fortunes after seeing the
value of its shares cut in half in the past six years.

(Reuters) – Exxon Mobil Corp’s profit narrowly beat expectations, as rising oil prices offset falling margins for chemicals and fuel, and production fell short of some estimates, and its shares fell almost 2 percent.

Fourth-quarter production of natural gas and crude oil dropped 9 percent, which Barclays Capital analyst Paul Cheng said might have been partly caused by reduced European natural gas sales due to warm weather.

About Braden

"Spent early career in London covering technology, media and telecoms over five years, after an initial stint in Dublin. Worked as India's chief financial copy editor and deputy bureau chief in Mumbai for 2-1/2 years before moving to San Francisco in 2006, first to edit West Coast stories and then to cover the energy business. A native Californian, Braden received his BA in Economics from the University of Chicago in 1996."